Blake Lively Moves to Dismiss Justin Baldoni's Suit; Makes Deposition Demand
This week, the tit for tat from hell continued. You know what I’m talking about: Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni. As the former It Ends With Us co-stars and their attorneys prepare for a pre-trial conference in New York federal court on February 3, Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds (a defendant in Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively) have made clear that they hope to put a stop to Baldoni’s case.
On Thursday, the couple’s lawyers filed a notice detailing the next steps in their federal case. Their ultimate objective? To dismiss Baldoni’s case altogether.
“Counsel for Ms. Lively and Ryan Reynolds (the ‘Lively Parties’) stated their objection to the Wayfarer Parties’ lead counsel conducting the deposition of Blake Lively,” wrote Baldoni’s other attorney, Kevin Fritz, in a letter to the judge. “Specifically, the Lively Parties’ counsel indicated that they object to Bryan J. Freedman, personally, taking Ms. Lively’s deposition, based upon unspecified statements made by Mr. Freedman.”
When asked to further justify their objection to Freedman, Lively and Reynolds’ attorneys reportedly declined.
However, earlier this week, attorneys for Lively claimed that Freedman took actions to taint the public’s—and potential jurors’—perception of her, specifically, with his numerous threats to create a website of evidence to clear his client. In a recent filing, Lively’s attorneys accused Freedman of “engaging in this extrajudicial campaign to influence these proceedings and the public perception of legal filings to this Court, and there already is a serious risk that his misconduct is tainting the jury pool.”
They added: “The endless stream of defamatory and extrajudicial media statements must end. Because of this, the pre-trial conference—originally set for mid-February–was moved up to the first week of the month to address pre-trial publicity and attorney conduct.
Meanwhile, Freedman defended his actions and intimated that Lively is operating from fear.
“We will always respect the court; however, we will never be bullied by those suggesting we cannot defend our clients with pure, unedited facts,” Freedman responded in a statement. “All we want is for people to see the actual text messages that directly contradict her allegations, video footage that clearly shows there was no sexual harassment and all the other powerful evidence that directly contradicts any false allegations.”
Freedman further said that the “irony is not lost on anyone that Ms. Lively is so petrified of the truth that she has moved to gag it.”
In Fritz’s response to Lively’s objection, he insisted that no one in active litigation has the right to dictate the logistics of the deposition.
“We are unaware of any situation that would warrant the deposed party to have a choice in which attorney takes her deposition,” he wrote. “Parties to litigation simply do not have the right to dictate which of their opponents’ attorneys may or may not take their deposition or perform any other aspect of the opposing party’s case.”
And this all is happening before the first pre-trial conference…